Shego the Second
by eoraptor
Summary: W/ Trackula AU Crossover Teen Titans and Kim Possible; The daughter of the first Shego must take up her mother's mantle in Jump City when Mommy disappears. How will she cope with high school, friends, criminal enterprise, and the Teen Titans?
1. Volume 1, Issue 1, Enter the Drago

_AN: "Teen Titans," "The New Teen Titans," and related material ©DC Comics, Warner Bros., and Cartoon Network. "Kim Possible," Shego, Joss, and related characters ©Walt Disney Company. Original characters belong to Festum, Eoraptor, or both. Not-for-Profit fan work._

_**Set Post Season 4 of "Teen Titans" or five years after "Kim Possible" and is an AU to both **_

_**PLEASE REVIEW AND RECOMMEND!!!**_

_**Shego the Second**_

_Volume 1, Issue 1_

"_Enter the Drago"_

_By: Trackula and Eoraptor_

Agni grinned softly, sitting astride the glass case. She had a gem in her clawed fingers. An emerald the size of a baseball… how fitting. Honestly though, this was getting boring. She'd gotten past every security device in this jewelry warehouse in less than fifteen minutes. Even that laser grid had been defeated with just a few leaps and twists.

"Well, there is one way I can spice things up…" Grinning behind her mask, the slender thief dipped the faceted gem down into one of the iridescent red beams.

The gem briefly flashed with internal light before the alarms throughout the building began to sound. Reclining on the glass case, she smirked and blew across the tips of her gloved fingers, tossing the heavy jewel in her other hand, and putting on an air of bored indifference. "Now we wait…"

Her patience was rewarded a few moments later as she heard the police wagons rolling up outside. She made a point of reclining even further, taking on a positively feline posture and waiting for someone to come in. The Jump City PD would be good to stretch her muscles if nothing else.

Someone _else_, though, would be far better at testing her skills against. The thought brought a small grin to pale green lips. It was different from the maniacal one carved into her comedy-style mask, an eager grin rather than the insane one the rest of the world saw from the other side of her disguise.

"_Little Robin Redbreast_

_Sat upon a rail._

_Niddle, naddle went his head;_

_Wiggle, waggle went his tail."_

She recited softly to herself as she chuckled, flipping the emerald over and over in her gloved palm. She hummed the little pentameter softly a few more times while she waited…

Sure enough, within five minutes of the sirens outside, she saw the vault door's mechanism beginning to spin and click in place as someone entered the combinations and turned the keys outside.

"Honestly… what's the point of a door when I can just climb in through the ventilation ducts?" She snorted, and checked her theatrically relaxed pose one more time, straightening the harlequin patterned top that clung tightly to her upper body. Her midriff, bared below by a daring arrow-shaped vest, twitched faintly and she tried to swallow back the excited butterflies at the thought of exertion. She made sure her leggings, tight to her thighs but looser at the bottom where they entered her black and green boots, were straight and impeccable.

Smiling, she watched as the door to the vault opened. Behind the comedy mask, with its matching black and green paint scheme, her face fell as a deep blue cloak fluttered at the other side of the portal. Sighing exasperatedly, she palmed the emerald into a pouch on her belt and sat up. "So not the little birdy I was hoping for, Rae… But I suppose you'll do."

"Shego…" the shorter girl sighed and made a faintly sour face, "Why am I not surprised that you're the one after the Stone of Calima?"

"Oh, this little thing?" the slender girl in the jaggedly colored two piece outfit chuckled, patting her pouch, "What can I say? I don't _always_ steal things for others… a girl's got to have her baubles you know."

"A bauble is a pair of earrings or a necklace, Shego…" A familiar voice echoed behind her. "Not a stone big enough to choke a horse."

Grinning, her eyes taking on an eerie light behind her mask, the girl called Shego turned to face that arrogantly confident voice. "Ah… see… now here's a boy that knows how to get in to a vault without being detected. Makes me wonder just who you got your training from, Robby."

"Everyone knows where Robin learned his stuff" came a baritone voice from outside the vault.

Agni watched as Cyborg, the big tech-oriented Titan, appeared behind the smaller dark girl at the doorway.

"Yeah, Duh! Everyone knows Batman trained Robin!" Beast Boy made himself known, momentarily morphing into a greenish bat to emphasize his statement. Apparently he had crawled down the vent in some small form, because he was floating over Robin's left shoulder when he did his pantomime.

"Yes, it was the Batman who taught Robin his 'mad skills,' not some criminal!"

Agni gritted her teeth as the last Teen Titan spoke. For some reason, the bubbly Starfire worked her nerves. Ironic, considering how they both wielded a green glow from their hands and eyes.

Facing Robin once more, the chaotically colored teen thief grinned, "Well, if no one wants to admit that Birdie-boy would make a good thief, let's just get this party started!"

Her left hand hurled a blob of roiling green plasma behind her back, towards the three titans at the vault door. As she sent that bolt flying, without sparing them a glance, she thrust another blast forward at the green changeling and the red breasted leader.

The fight was on, and the girl in clashing black and green dove not for the exit of the vault door, but for the back of the vault and the two boys who stood there. The changeling apparently was finally learning this tactic of hers, and instead of diving off to one side to get out of her way, he morphed, becoming some kind of squid and started snapping tentacles and suckers at her.

"Mmmm! Calamari! I haven't had fried squid salad in a while!" The wicked grin on Shego's mask matched the one she wore beneath as she danced among the grabbing arms, her hands flashing with green energy flecked in black. She cackled as she saw the large eyes of the magical squid quiver in fear at her declaration.

Robin, forced to one side of the vault by Beast Boy's sudden increase in size and limbs, held a bird-a-rang at the ready, watching the two green figures writhe at each other. "Don't let her spook you Beast Boy! She's just trying to get into your head!"

A bolt of bubbling green and black energy erupted from the flicking mass of tentacles at the boy wonder, causing him to leap again, towards the door of the confining vault. "Just keep telling yourself that, Boy Wonderful! Me, I'm cravin' some sashimi!"

A spark of green energy struck the bulbous end of a squid tentacle and the green creature squawked, suddenly contracting into his still-green, but human form. "Man that stings!"

"Beast Boy! Look out!"

Agni grinned at the cry, which came too late from Raven to alert the green shape shifter to her plans. Grabbing him by his purple and black collar and belt, the clown-cloaked girl gave him the bum's rush right at Robin and Raven, who couldn't get out of the way quickly enough to avoid being bowled over by the flying boy.

Her only miscalculation was that in knocking down three of the titans, the two with blasting abilities now had clean shots. A bolt of neon green and one of blue-white rocketed out at her and the only thing that kept Agni from being slammed into the back wall of the vault was her own gloved hands, swathed in that black and green comet energy. She threw them up in front of her body with nary a second to spare.

With a heavy grunt, her arms were forced back at the impact and her feet skidded an appreciable amount before the bolts dissipated. Shaking her hands out and grimacing behind the mask, "Shego" snickered, "Well boys and girls, it's been a slice… but I've got dinner on the stove, and the pasta won't boil itself!"

Even as the Titans were storming into the vault space to tackle her, she blasted two bolts of emerald energy at the floor. This had the twin effects of blasting all air, and heroes, out of the vault, and thrusting her upwards at the same vent she had entered by.

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

Escaping the Teen Titans was just as easy as she had imagined. Given that it was their third meeting; she was getting to know their patterns well enough. She'd known they wouldn't rip the ventilation system out of the walls just to catch a jewel thief, so she had scooted quickly to the roof. From there things got slightly hairy. The Police had brought in a helicopter, and unfortunately, Agni Drago glowed like a searchlight on its infrared camera. A mean body temperature of 114 degrees meant she stood out like nobody's business on any kind of thermal sensor.

Still, a few quick vaults, a climb down a rope into an alley behind an adjacent building, and ducking into a drainage culvert connected to the city's storm sewers was all it had taken. By the time the cops and their dogs had gotten to the grate she had used, the weld on it had cooled and solidified, and she was well away to her hideout to change out of her costume.

Agni came home to the condo at Jump City Towers feeling somewhat refreshed by the activity. Eddie, the evening doorman, had noted the pink flush in her cheeks and commented on it as he gave her the mail. He also pointedly ignored the duffle she carried as always.

The green tinted teen's rush evaporated slightly as she came up to the condo itself on the sixteenth floor. Inside, the plastic drop cloths and drywall crumblings reminded her that she was again coming home to an empty apartment. The contractors were doing a good job about getting things fixed, and the building's tenant board had accepted the report from the fire examiner, bought and paid for by some of Tasha's money, that it had been a gas explosion which had blown out the west wall of the flat.

"Bunch of over-insulated fat cats," she grumbled as she looked at the fresh masonry and picture window. "Wouldn't care if I was raped and murdered as long as they didn't have to hear it over their stereos and Chihuahuas."

At least she didn't have to sleep on the cot at the warehouse any more. Six weeks it had taken to get the permits required to start repairs on the condominium… and that was a legitimate six weeks, not having anything to do with covering up the fact that the condo's owner, Natasha Drago, her mother, was missing. It was shear red tape from Jump City Public Works.

She sighed and sat her mail, most of it for Tasha, on the table. She then tossed the duffel bag into the closet and closed the door. A lesson from mom about "plain sight" laws. Never leave a score sitting around where the cops can see it should they come knocking.

Sighing, Agni walked up the spiral staircase to her room. Tasha's room was still just stud walls and open fixtures. Not that she would want to sleep in there anyway.

After sitting a few minutes on the bed, she sighed and pulled out the transcripts. She'd already decided on one change in her life. Mom wasn't around to say anything about it, and by the time she returned, it would be too late to do much to overrule it. Agni had decided already that she was done with those stupid uniforms and those stuck up girls at Murakami High. She had used Tasha's signature to request her transcripts, and was going to go tomorrow to enroll in the Jump City Public School system.

"Probably end up at PS #42," she mused to herself. She had already scouted that place. An old two story red brick building. Over-crowded, typical public services fodder with a good mix of lower and middle class students, as well as a few upper-middle-class types whose parents either couldn't or wouldn't send them to private school at either Murakami or the Wayne Foundation.

She spent a little over ten minutes sorting through the paperwork, making sure that everything was in order with the legitimate documentation, and that there was no obvious snags in the forged information. She didn't want any minor oversights tripping her up tomorrow. It was stress the sixteen year old could happily live without.

Agni stood back up and stretched, shuffling the papers back in order and putting them into their folder. She was steadily becoming aware of an uncomfortable rumbling in her midsection, and needed to get that out of the way. First, however, was the matter of her public persona to be dealt with.

The teen made her way to her bathroom, reaching up and pulling free the long blond wig with some mild effort. The application of theatrical glue she used to keep it still and authentic tore easily with only a minor application of force. She was so used to the sensation that it didn't even sting like it had years ago.

Placing the restricting wig on its stand beside the sink, Agni then removing all six clips that held her neck length green-black locks tightly in place. She shook her head back and forth letting her scalp air out and enjoying the sensation of freedom that accompanied it.

"In a million years I don't think I'll _ever_ figure out what I was thinking when I decided to settle on blonde," she mused halfheartedly as she regarded the flaxen wig. This one was her fourth; and she had to admit, it was her most comfortable compared to the hellishly itchy one that had preceded it. Not that that made having to wear it all day every day much more bearable. But she'd developed quite the tolerance for keeping up appearances over the years, so it wasn't a severe complaint. That and the days she spent wandering the seedier parts of the city, minus her wig on what her mother liked to refer to as Agni's "mental health" days.

With the hairpiece out of the way, Agni pulled her pale gray blouse over her head and dropped it unceremoniously beside her sink, leaving her torso poorly concealed by a white cotton undershirt. With a body as… _slender_ as hers, bras were redundant. She dealt with enough confining garb in the form of the Murakami uniform she had to wear on weekdays to be bothered with that as well.

Now with the majority of her upper torso uncovered, Agni could get full access to where her body makeup was applied. Her shoulders down to her fingers, and her collarbone to her hairline were all a pale off-shade of pinkish white; jarring in opposition with the pale gray-green that covered the rest of her lithe frame. Her legs were likewise coated from hip to sock line. This was a lesson she had learned the hard way when she was twelve, and only applying the pigment to her knees. Little boys were precocious and liked to peek up skirts and gym shorts, and how her mother had had a time playing off her green thighs as a rare and temporary fungus to the school nurse after Billy McGuire had started yelling and pointing!

Closing her eyes, the thief concentrated, flexing the imaginary muscle that raised her body temperature. The compound coating her skin was waterproof, sweat proof, and abrasion resistant; and bonded relentlessly to skin cells making it almost impossible to remove. But luckily it was designed to break down cleanly and completely at one hundred fifty degrees, and that was well within her body's ability to exert.

After a minute of maintaining the super feverish temperature, she opened her eyes in time to see the last vestiges of her disguise evaporate away in thin white wisps, returning her body to its overall minty complexion.

Reaching for her brush, the teen mechanically went through the motions of working her hair out and pulling free any tangles from the neck-length black mop as her mind wandered to her plans for the next day.

It felt like such a relief returning to a public institution after so many years of overbearing private academies. She hadn't gone to a public school since third grade and she was slightly dismayed to find that she was even a little excited at the prospect. It was a pretty stupid thing to look forward to, most teens would dread the perceived downgrade from a private institution to a publicly funded high school.

It wasn't so much that she _hated_ Murakami or anything so extreme, but it was far more of a bother than she'd like to impose on her already unfathomably complex lifestyle. Wearing a uniform was stifling, and suffocated her sense of style like a hangman's noose. Also the cut of the skirt and top meant she needed double her application of body makeup, which was like wearing an extra layer of skin, definitely _not_ comfortable. Additionally, the teachers being humorless Ben Stein clones didn't lend the faculty any points in her smart-alecky view…

But worst of all, staying under the radar in that kind of environment was tricky business considering how one's reputation tended to hold some clout, and a reputation was exactly the kind of thing she was trying to avoid. Reputations meant attention and attention was a super-thief's kryptonite. But Tasha had insisted on it. She always saw to it that Agni attended the same school she was employed in and not only did Murakami pay well; it had the second best curriculum in the city. As usual, the older thief stubbornly refused to be talked out of it.

'_But that's a bridge I intend to burn, ASAP. Mom can ream me all she wants about it after I find her…'_ The annoyed growl of her stomach cut her off from going to deeply into that depressing train of thought. Agni placed her comb back down beside the sink basin and made her way to the unfinished kitchen. Opening the pantry she began to rifle through her limited possibilities.

"Lessee here… cereal… Had that last night… Potato chips… Yuck, stale… Hmmm… Rigatoni…" She reached in and retrieved the box. Her parting remark to the Titan's echoed in her mind. "Hehe, the pasta won't boil itself."

She filled a pot half way with salt and water and walked past the stove to the couch. Despite what she'd told the pimply-faced defenders, the stove had yet to be connected. She sat with her right hand ignited beneath the metal base. The contents were brought to a roiling boil only a minute or so later. "Glow powers; the answer to all of life's little annoyances."

After making enough naked pasta for dinner and breakfast the next morning, she quickly ate her fill and made her way back up to her room. The teen stripped down to the skin and pulled out her favorite PJs, a pair of slashed up black cotton shorts and a black tank top. She spent a moment rolling the kinks from her neck, shoulders and back. She then fell backwards onto her hands, hoisting her lower body into the air rigidly straight, and held her toes pointed. Slowly bending her elbows, she lowered her face a mere inch from the floor, then back up ten times in a row. Then she straitened and gradually spread her legs into an upside-down splits, holding the position until she worked all the stiffness from her system.

She moved through her stretch in reverse until she was back on her feet, facing the bed. The events of her night played back as she prepared for sleep.

'_Amazingly _dull_ way to cap off a big heist, ain't it. I ran off with one of the largest emeralds on Earth, fought five pubescent heroes all on my lonesome, and out ran the cops only to do it all over again as soon as I get the chance. I should be celebrating at some club or eating out at a fancy overpriced Sushi place, or something equally decadent. I'm a freaking supervillain! I shouldn't be worrying about school tomorrow.'_

She grumbled slightly as she switched off the desk lamp and slipped under her thin black blanket. _Like rippin' off a band-aid. Tomorrow will go smoothly and I can get back to focusing on what's important; what _really_ matters. _The thief closed her eyes, trying to push the worries of her mother's whereabouts from her mind in exchange for the oblivion of unconsciousness.

But sleep didn't come for well over an hour. Agni finally got out of bed and went to her closet. She peeled out a selection of DVDs, something innocuous, and slid one into her TV set, setting it to play straight through. An anime started, one of her favorites. As the Japanese cartoon played and filled the silence of the room, drowning away her thoughts, she curled up in bed once more. Her favorite character, the one reminding her of Tasha, flashed across the screen with the opening music playing and she smiled, allowing her emerald eyes to drift closed as she sighed.

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

Three hours later, she woke with a start, and despite her abnormal metabolism, she was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The last thing she remembered was running down the steps of an old Japanese shrine in the wilderness, being chased by a glowing blue man with unruly blonde hair. Even that sketchy image rapidly faded from the meta-teen's conscious as she breathed deeply, looking around her bedroom and rubbing her eyes with the balls of her hands.

"Okay, that's it… no more Tenchi before bed!" She muttered as she tried to clear her eyes and head of sleep.

Her clock radio chose that moment to erupt in noise, startling her, "…and the search continues today for Jocelyn Maria Possible… The cousin of famed hero Kim Possible has been missing for-,"

Agni manipulated the off button to kill the five a.m. news blurb and sighed heavily, blinking in the light from the TV's still screen DVD menu.

Once it was switched on to the fitness channel, the teen began going through a set of stretches in time with the disgustingly well proportioned blonde woman who was cheerfully encouraging her on the screen. Several minutes of this loosened sleep stiffened muscles and got the blood flowing once more everywhere it was supposed to. To most of the people watching this program, it was a rigorous series of leg lifts, stretches, and twists, but to th green teen, it was just a morning ablutions, no more rigorous than brushing her teeth.

Standing straight and bouncing on her toes with renewed energy, Agni shook out her head and ran a hand through the matted hair, making a face. Still, she had a good few hours before she _had_ to pull on her wig and slather on the body makeup. She elected, since that was the case, to indulge in a long shower, and to treat her oft abused hair to some TLC before she had to once more imprison it beneath flaxen locks, hairpins, and surgical adhesive.

Pausing before entering the bathroom, she looked down at the stack of paperwork she had assembled for the days sojourn. Transcripts, forged documentation, immunization history (like she ever freaking got sick) and all the other banalities a public school could ask for and then file pointlessly away. All she needed to do was to go down to PS 42 and turn it in, and she could start her new life as an inmate of Jump City's public school system.

Simple, right?

* * *

_Author's Notes: _

_Eoraptor; Links are available on my front page to all of the concept work and sketches of this project, as drawn by Trackula and myself. This is very much an ever-evolving project, right now, the titling is a bit up in the air barring better suggestions. The Volume/Issue thing is loosely fashioned after comic books (at least that's sort of the plan) and serving in the place of titles for chapters. Oh, we also have a few humorous Omake or side stories to be told later._


	2. Volume 1, Issue 1, Chapter 2

_AN: "Teen Titans," "The New Teen Titans," and related material ©DC Comics, Warner Bros., and Cartoon Network. "Kim Possible," Shego, Joss, and related characters ©Walt Disney Company. Original characters belong to Trackula, Eoraptor, or both. Not-for-Profit fan work._

_Set Post Season 4 of "Teen Titans" or five years after "Kim Possible" and is an AU to both_

_**PLEASE REVIEW AND RECOMMEND!!!**_

_**Shego the Second**_

_Volume 1, Issue 1, chapter 2_

"Enter the Drago"

By: Trackula and Eoraptor

- - -

Robin leaned back in his seat, rubbing his brow just above his mask. He knew he shouldn't be pulling another all-nighter, but that adage about old habits rang painfully true. What was worse, though, was what he'd been spending all night on. Just three minutes of video footage that he was hell-bent on committing to memory.

The scene played back over and over again in a loop; a shifting and moving point of view making its way through the vault door. The image followed behind Raven's fluttering blue cloak into the vault, but was obviously taken from well above her height. Finally it came to where the girl in her frightful dual-colored uniform sat languidly across the display case she'd just vandalized.

The image had no sound, but he knew what was being said already. Reading lips was easy enough, even though he couldn't see hers through that hideous smirking mask. He sighed when he saw himself drop down behind her and make his way across the vault floor with Beastboy following. At the time he had briefly considered simply trying to tackle the thief. But after their second encounter, he'd learned to be wary of just how attentive to her surroundings she really was.

The fight was little more than two minutes of flashing lights and acrobatics before her explosive egress, which had sent Robin tumbling headfirst into Starfire. The encounter was certainly nothing epic or particularly memorable by the standards of the Teen Titans. But it was all he had to work with.

The teen sighed, pressing play yet again after the video file Cyborg had recorded ran its course. He wasn't certain, but he had a working theory that this new Shego produced some EMP that fried all other video before it could capture her. After all, these three minutes was all they had ever captured of her, and nearly as little existed of the first mysterious Shego, who had come from Go City to Jump City years before.

Three encounters and all they had to show for it was this. All he could be certain of was that this person calling herself Shego had the same abilities as the first, but was shorter and of a different build… a bit old to be a daughter, a sister perhaps; but that was the _only_ working theory that he had for the moment. That, and her own cocky pronouncements of working as a thief for hire.

Rolling his shoulders, Robin watched the video play through yet again, studying her movements intently. He'd have to ask if Cyborg could get audio feed next time. Something he could run a voice print analysis against.

Of course, Robin was too well informed to have any real hope of learning Shego's identity through these methods. After all, the first hadn't even bothered to wear a mask, and there was still seemingly no one who knew who she really was beyond having once been a superhero in Go. This unknown inheritor of that title was perhaps even more cautious than the first in wearing a mask.

The only sure way to unmask this thief was after she was secured in a cell. The problem was though, that all things considered she was a very low priority. She was still a criminal, but there was no vendetta as with Red X to require their full focus. And while her skill was frustrating, it also kept civilians out of harms way and she was _only _a thief when it came down to it.

To be honest, the boy wonder wasn't too sure why he was putting this kind of effort into capturing who would otherwise be nothing more than a petty crook.

"Resolution's better than I thought," came the deep baritone voice over his shoulder.

Robin looked around to see Cyborg with a cup of steaming coffee in each metal grip. His teammate gave him a wry smirk and handed him the cup in his right hand, which he gratefully accepted.

"Thanks," Robin smirked before blowing steam off his '#1 Sidekick' cup and taking a sip.

"Spent all night on this, huh?" Cyborg asked flatly, reaching over and pressing stop on the keyboard. "Hell of a way to spend your night."

"She got away," Robin grumbled. "For the third time."

"And that'll mean she'll get cocky, and sloppy, and we'll nab 'er," Cyborg explained. "Not the best way to go about things, but whatev'."

Robin just frowned and took another sip. Seeing that he was talking to a brick wall, Cyborg shrugged and added, "Starfire's right there with you, though. She can't wait to put Shego away… probably 'cause of that flirting she's been throwing out there lately."

"Cyborg…" Robin warned.

Cyborg gave a chuckle and when he saw Robin didn't seem placated, sighed and added, "For what it's worth, I bet she's just trying to get under your skin. And not into your tights."

"Cy!" Robin exclaimed standing up and glaring at his much taller teammate.

This time, Cyborg didn't even try to hold in his mirth, giving a deep laugh at his flustered leader. Although, he was smart enough to walk off as he did so. He knew he'd pushed his luck, but it'd been more than worth it.

Robin glared at Cyborg's retreating titanium-plated back as he snickered off. When he was out of site, the boy wonder sat back down in the control seat in a huff, taking another careful sip of his unsweetened coffee. Casting a look at the blown up image of the carved wooden grin across the screen, he set his jaw.

'_I don't know where you are now, Shego. But next time_ will _be the last time.'_

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

'_Well, here I am,'_ Agni thought apprehensively as she looked up at the relatively sturdy two-story public institution.

There was really no denying it. This place was a downgrade from Murakami in just about every respect. The construction (she'd read the blueprints of course), the staff, hell, even the bus service. This was a public school with a public budget. A forgettable place to get rid of one's spawn for half a day, under the presumption of education.

'_This place is perfect!'_ Agni smirked, _'No fetishy uniforms, no expectations, no attention! Look, that girl's wearing pajama pants! To school!'_

She looked down at herself for a moment, reassessing her ensemble. Currently she wore a pair of formfitting jeans, and a beige turtleneck. Nice and unassuming, if a tad constricting. Luckily, Jump City tended to get pretty chilly in autumn due to being along the shoreline, so she didn't seem overdressed. It was one of the reasons Agni preferred winter to summer.

She gave her folder a quick once over to see that all of her documentation was in order. Satisfied that she had not forgotten anything, she gave a small smile.

'_Okay, bad girl... Remember. Agni is normal. Agni has no powers. Agni is not special. Agni is forgettable.'_

With that in mind, she proceeded inside along with her future classmates. None of which, she noted smugly, were sparing her so much as a glance. Well, okay, one or two were sparring her a glance, but that was normal, after all, she was new, and at least a few were bound to notice that. As she walked down the hall towards the office, she allowed the crowd to guide her… right into a water fountain, which she hip checked, causing her to yelp.

'_There, that got them laughing and moving along… all it cost was one bruise!'_ Muttering and shaking her head, she made her way inside.

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

"I'm afraid I can't help you at this time, Miss Drago."

Agni blinked, taken aback by the wholly unexpected and unwelcome answer. Suppressing a frown as best she could, the disguised teen tried to focus on the issue at hand.

Everything had gone smoothly. She had gone in to the attendance and enrollment office and was directed to the desk of a one Steven Barkin. A man who, so far as she was concerned, resembled an anthropomorphized bulldog with a buzzcut. Big, and muscular with beady little eyes and a permanent scowl chiseled onto his wide face.

Agni's first thought when she saw the rigid way he carried himself even while sitting was that the man couldn't have been more obviously ex-military if he had a neon sign strapped to his back that read; 'I used to be an army grunt.' Some of Tasha's acquaintances had military backgrounds, so sniffing one out was easy.

But anyways, she'd put on a smile, told the man she was supposed to enroll here, and gave him her folder of all the necessary documents. He'd taken it, looked through each document without a word, and then handed it back to her. His little bombshell went off a moment later.

'_What the hell's his problem?! I know I didn't miss a page. Can he tell some are fake? Impossible, they're all perfect!'_

Taking a deep breath through her nose, Agni resisted clenching her fist and put on her best innocently confused expression, "Um, What's the matter Mister Barkin?"

"Your guardian, Miss Drago." He looked up, raising his voice a bit, "As in you don't have one here with you. I need the signature of a parent or guardian in the presence of a school official to admit you… Security, Patriot Act, paper trail, all that."

The teen silently cursed herself, her own stupidity, and paperwork, all in one mental breath. Of course, these people were part of "the machine," as Tasaha called it. They lived and died by carbon copies! Bemoaning her fate, she sighed, "Fine, I guess I'll have to come back… Th- thank you for your time Mister Barkin."

"See that you do." He nodded, and watched her as she left. Once she was gone, Steve Barkin reexamined her papers. He couldn't understand why anyone would transfer from that private academy to one of the city's public school. "Huh, must be money problems."

Oh well, wasn't his problem. Life here in Jump City was so much simpler than Middleton. At least here, the Heroes didn't actually go to school! They stayed safely on a tower out in the bay.

"No, no students running off out of class to save the world…" He chuckled, shaking his head and setting Drago's file off to one side. "Just your basic average students, in your basic average world…"

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

"There! Right there!" The boy Wonder cheered as he pointed to a frame of Cyborg's video.

"Dude? That's a mole. I've got one! Heck, even Raven has one, I think..." Beastboy rolled his eyes. He had just been walking through the command center on his way to get a sandwich when Robin had commandeered him into looking for identifiable marks in the short run of video. Three hours ago.

"Yes, but look where it is!" he pointed at the screen, irritated at the green boy's rebuttal.

Indeed, there was a mole on the girl's torso, only exposed when she had leaned back while fighting Beastboy, causing her already tight top to ride up and expose the bottom of her rib cage.

"Identifiable. Mark." He muttered into his gloved hand.

"So, Robin… we just run around getting girls to flash us their tops until we find one with a mole?" Beastboy rubbed his hands together, grinning and plotting suddenly as it dawned how such a blemish would have to be identified.

Robin just sighed and clenched his hands.

"Robin, you're wasting your time." Cyborg offered as he entered the area as well, seeing Beastboy salivating. "Heck, I had a mole in that very spot before the accident that made me the way that I am."

Indicating the armored left side of his flank, Cyborg raised his real eyebrow to punctuate his remark. He kept it up for a comically long moment before shrugging. "Besides, it doesn't really help us, unless we do like BB suggests and ask girls to strip, or, you know, start patrolling Jump City Municipal Beach, but the swim season is over."

"Awe! Come on! I'd so totally be up for that! Babes, bikinis, sun, sand…"

"Of course you would, which is why we won't be doing it," came a dour response from the kitchenette, where Raven was steeping a mug of tea while watching the boys argue. "…and for the record, I do not have a mole. Anywhere."

Sparing her a moment's glance, Robin finally sighed, admitting defeat on this particular point. After a moment, he flipped a switch on the console, switching off the video all together. Standing up wearily, he stretched, several joints popping.

"Cyborg, any chance on getting audio the next time we run into her?"

"Shouldn't be a problem, man. But when will we? Jewel robberies aren't exactly our usual priority."

"Raven?"

"Why are you asking me? I am not exactly one of the social elite."

"You're a girl, she's a girl, you both have a thing for jewelry…" Beastboy grinned and indicated the center of his forehead, then his belt and wrists in rapid succession.

"These are mystical artifacts, Garfield. Not. Jewelry."

The sting of his real name sent the elfish Titan reeling, a stricken look on his face. Smirking softly, Raven returned her attention to Cyborg and Robin, "No, I have no idea when she might strike next. Perhaps Starfire might know. She is a bit more in touch with the social scene of the city."

Robin and Cyborg both winced.

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

Jocelyn Possible muttered as she heaved another red snapper up and over the ice chest and through the air towards the vendor. Despite being surrounded ice on all sides, she was sweating from the constant effort of fish mongering. She also stank to high heaven, and her gloved hands were covered in fish slime and various parts of pelagic anatomy.

Still, it was a good day's work, a hard day's work; and no one here was at all curious who she was or where she'd come from. It paid reasonably well for the effort involved, and she seemed to be particularly adept at hurling sea creatures dozens of feet on command, accurately. She'd have to remember to thank Cousin Kim for teaching her a little Cantonese, if she ever saw her again.

She just wished it paid well enough for her to afford an apartment with a shower of her own. She couldn't stay at a shelter for fear of someone recognizing her, and paying to shower at the truck stop out on the highway was getting expensive, especially when she had to take the bus or a taxi out there and back. Plus, she could just as easily be identified out there as at a homeless shelter.

With a sigh, the auburn haired farm girl let her shoulders sag for a moment between throws. Shaking her chilled hands and arms out from being plunged into the crushed ice and fish slime, she groaned. She might be a capable girl, but this was hard freakin' work!

Reaching out when the next call came, this time for a yellow fin tuna, she picked up the sleek oceanic fish and then tossed. The toss was accompanied with a yank, a tear, and very nearly a curse as the rigid spines of the tuna caught on something.

"Great! Now, not only do Ah smell like carp, but Ah look like Powergirl!" Joss clenched a hand over the front of her stained, and now torn white tank top, trying to hide her bra and freckled cleavage, and yelled out in Cantonese what she hoped was 'break time.'

Making sure the next kid in the line knew she was stopping, so she wouldn't catch a fish in the face, Joss made her way to the small restroom at one end of the Market Street docks. By the time she got there, she was gritting her teeth and blushing intently. Even with her hand clutching the tank top tightly closed, it was pretty obvious, given the bosom she had inherited from her mother's side of the family, what was going on. People had stared, and even wolf-whistled at her the whole way.

Sighing and making sure to lock the door behind her, the farm girl started digging in one of her pockets. Finally she turned up a safety pin from the left one. "Well, t'aint perfect, but Ah think it'll get me through tha day."

With a forlorn sigh, she fastened the pin through the ruptured fabric, closing _most_ of the hole. She then unclipped the snap on her holster and pulled out her multitool. Gripping one end of the pin between her calloused fingers, she used the pliers to twist it down, closing up most of the rest of the gap as the pin yielded and twisted into a knot.

"Well, t'aint demure by any stretch," She turned left and right before the mirror, chewing her lower lip, "But least Ah'm not hangin' out all over now."

Leaning forward and resting her hands on the sink, she let go a sigh and eyed herself in the mirror. "This what you were expectin' when ya'll took off there, Joss girl?"

'_no, t'aint in the least,' _she thought back to herself, letting her eyes fall away from her reflection and stare at the dingy basin. When she'd run away from the ranch in Montana, she hadn't expected to be spending her days tossing fish in Jump City…

She'd been expecting to be a hero, just like Kim and Ronnie. But when she found her belly rumbling fiercely at the end of the first week, she was forced to admit that feeding herself came before any dreams of doing the right thing for society. That, and the fact that she couldn't keep up with the likes of the real heroes in the city, who were keeping things pretty safe, and had been in the three weeks she'd been here.

"Well, nuff'a your pitty party there, Joss girl…" She sniffed slightly, restraining the tear that threatened at the edge of one eye, "Them fish ain't going to walk themselves to the vendors, and you ain't bein paid ta coddle yerself in the bathroom."

The muscular runaway readjusted the ball cap that hid her auburn hair lower over her eyes and exited the little utility bathroom to return to her fish tossing, figuring that things had to get better from here.

_**-)SHEGO(-**_

As the teen returned reluctantly to the condo, she sighed heavily. Just her luck to forget the most important part of any teenager's school career… the parent. With a sigh, she slid out of the taxi and gave the door a particularly petulant slam. Ignoring the dirty look from the driver, whom she had tipped, Agni glared at the sky and wondered for the first time this morning where the hell her mother was.

"Tasha!!! Damn it! Why couldn't you leave me one freaking clue!?" She demanded of the skyline of Jump City.

With no answer forthcoming, the teen sighed and let herself into the secured front door with her key card. She ignored Eddie, who had just been coming to greet her, blowing him off with a wave of her hand and card, and slid into the elevator.

As it ascended, she glared at her feet. Until she spotted, just at one edge of the carpet, the slightly heat-warped metal of the elevator floor. Chuckling morosely to herself, she remembered the night she had made that spot, long before the floor of the lift had been recarpeted.

_-three years earlier-_

Agni could barely contain herself as she and Tasha finally reached their condo and entered. She was practically quivering with energy as the events of the long night replayed over and over again in her head. In fact, some of that energy had leaked out, and left a nice sagging red weld in the floor of the elevator before she got herself under control. Fortunately, the elevators didn't have fire detectors, and someone had moved into the building that morning, her mother had said while laughing and patting her on the shoulder, so they could blame it on them.

When finally Tasha closed the door behind them, Agni could no longer contain herself in the slightest. The elder thief looked like she were about to say something, but was abruptly cut off when she was struck in the center of her chest by the full weight of a nearly squealing thirteen-year-old girl.

"Ohmygod! Omygod! Ohmygod!" Agni laughed, hugging her mother tightly. "I did it! I totally did it. I am one badass unstoppable super thief!"

Shego just smirked and reached over to pull off her daughter's wig and ruffle the black-green locks underneath, "So, had fun, Kiddo?"

Agni just rolled her eyes at her mother's wry comment. "Like you weren't watching me the whole time. I saw you behind that display case, y'know. I'm kinda surprised you left it totally to me."

Tasha smirked, "If you hadn't see me, you'd be getting an earful right now and we'd be going right back to the warehouse to work your ass off, young lady. I made sure to pick that dark red wall so you'd see my costume against it."

"Yeah yeah yeah, but I _did_ see you, so I just get to sit back and enjoy my delicious victory!" Agni grinned giddily, playing back the whole night in her head. Her first real job, totally unaided, if supervised… a little.

Shego rolled her eyes and nodded, "Right, we can celebrate tomorrow night. But for now, what'd you do wrong?"

"Aw c'mon Ma, can't I-"

"Agni, _now_. You made three mistakes, so I want to hear three corrections from you."

Agni grumbled as her high was so unceremoniously interrupted, but she sighed and did the deed without preamble so she could get back to spazzing out. The job itself had been a fairly simple sneak and snatch, even if the security had been righteous. Agni had been left to everything; surveillance, materials, planning, execution… Tasha had refused to help her beyond throwing her the job. But that's what had made it oh so sweet that she'd actually accomplished it. What were a few errors in the face of that achievement by a thirteen year old girl? Even if she was the daughter of the legendary mercenary Shego?

"Okay… I spent too much time on the combination, I admit… I still hate that stupid combo-cracker! Would have been easier if I was allowed to just burn through the damn thing. I shouldn't have gone to zap that guard while he was cleaning his glasses since I showed up in the reflection and had to put him down harder than I needed to. Annnnnd… I forgot to secure my pouch when doing that backwards handspring over the laser grid so one of my micro-tools nearly fell into the beam. Happy?"

"Don't be giving me snark like these are minor things," the elder theif sighed. "Every mistake can be your last. The dropped tool could not only have set off the alarm, but you could have landed on it and cut yourself, badly. The lock had to be picked… Shego wasn't doing this job… Agni Drago was." Tasha blew a breath threw her hair. They might share the same powers, but glowing green plasma was her professional signature, not her daughter's.

"The guard was your _biggest_ blunder…. Had you been slower, or he been faster, or you caught your foot on the carpet or something… Well, he could have beaten you, tazered you, or even shot you." She gave her offspring a concerned look, moving to sit in front of the girl.

"But all he had was a walky talky." Agni sighed and nodded, knowing that was the path of least resistance. "But I didn't know that until _after_ I had knocked him out, did I?"

Shego shook her head at her daughter, then nodded at the correct assessment.

After a moment, Agni shot her mom an impish smirk, "But… you gotta admit that I did good, right?"

Tasha grinned and leaned back, pulling Agni into a tight hug, "Totally. Now all that's left is to deliver the haul."

"Oh yeah," Agni giggled, reaching into her pocket, pulling out the immaculate white gold and diamond encrusted pocket watch, wrapped in a simple handkerchief. She smirked and dangled in in front of her eyes for a moment, before handing it over to her mother. "There it is. Nice, huh? It's like two hundred years old, right? That's what the plaque said anyway."

"That's the story," Shego smirked, looking over the old timepiece and grinning. Then she reached out and took Agni's hand, placing the watch therein, curling her fingers around it. "There, now it's all delivered. Job complete."

Agni was about to ask what Tasha was talking about, before her eyes widened and she slumped back on her butt. "Y-y…YOU were my client!?"

Tasha grinned, watching as Agni's own smile spread to her face's stress limits. "Figured you'd want something to remember your first job by, and now there it is."

_-the present-_

Agni sighed and thrust her hands into her empty pockets, noting the absence of that familiar weight, and her expression darkened further. The watch had gone missing the same day Tasha had… probably destroyed in the chaos that the green teen had come home to. With a growl and a scuffing of her shoe on the dented floor of the elevator, she waited for her floor to come up and cursed her misfortunes.


End file.
